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Finally successful, he
stepped to one side, allowing her in first. The room was functional
rather than aesthetically styled. Small double bed, unlined striped
curtains matching a seemingly pointless foot-wide strip of cloth
across the bottom of the white duvet – everything a person could
need was there, but in bare minimum quantities.

“I’d call this a
budget hotel, but I’m not sure such a thing exists in London,” he
said. “Do take a seat. There’s this charming chair or you have, of
course, this enormous bed on which to sprawl.”

He fetched the two
plastic disposable tooth cups from the bathroom and unscrewed the
Bell’s, as she shook both her head and her left hand.

“Oh God, no more.”

“Just the one, and
look… I’ll open the juice and,” he looked around, “pour you a
large, erm, coffee mug of this healthy stuff and all.”

Choosing the bed, she
slipped off her emerald velvet fitted jacket, kicked off her heels
and pulled her bejeaned legs on to the bed, where she lay
spreadeagled for five minutes or so without saying a word. He
placed her mug of juice on the bedside shelf and sat on the chair,
his own glass on the table beside him.

“Hey, don’t you go
falling asleep on me, lassie, or I’ll have to pick you up and chuck
you under a cold shower awhile.”

Jane’s half-grunted,
half-whined “Urghhh” was accompanied by a roll over on to her right
side, facing him, and with an incredibly slow hand movement she
pulled a section of the duvet over her long, shapely body. After a
few moments, her left eye opened and, with a disgruntled look, she
asked if she’d been out for long.

“Days,” he said. “It’s
Sunday morning now, and I’ve been trapped in London since Thursday
night.”

“Oh shut up. Can you
pass me my drink, please? I know it’s right next to me, and it
might seem just a bit lazy, but I think I’d be better able to
function with some vitamin C inside me. I hope. Pretty please?”

Alasdair lifted
himself from the wooden chair and leant over her, mug in hand, her
eyes following him, and she moved over a little, both to sit up and
to create a space on the bed where he could join her.

“Come, share your bed…
you did pay for it, after all,” and she patted the area next to
where she now sat, leaning back against the freshly plumped up
pillows.

He sat down, swinging
his equally long legs, still kilted, but also without his jacket,
on to the bed, and she slumped her head against his shoulder.

“God, Alasdair. That’s
what I call a damn fine session. I don’t want to get all soppy on
you, but it’s good, it’s great, it’s been great to meet you, and I
like the idea of the big family thing. Lorna... hell, you know how
we feel about our kids… and she’s not had too good a time of it. I
mean, he’s been a good dad, but he was a shit husband – though he
seems to be doing okay second time around.”

“Lorna mentioned her
two little brothers. Twins, right? Ten years… oh.” And something
fell into place.

“Yes. Oh.”

“You knew her?”

“Very well. I knew
that… I knew that girl, because that’s what she was, for sure. I
employed that girl. We employed that… girl.”

“In your house?”
Alasdair was looking straight at her now, or at least at the top of
her head, which still rested on him.

“I worked. I worked
and worked and worked and he… Michael… he, hell, worked, he did. He
was, is, a cameraman, did she mention that? Well, that’s what he
did. Away for days, weeks, and then home for just as long
stretches, which was great for her, but in between times we needed
someone to just be there. For Lorna, for normality, and she was
such a lovely thing, the girl we picked, and I just never thought…
honestly it never even occurred to me that he could do that. Fuck
things up. Be so fucking stupid.”

He lifted her head up
to face him, a silent tear running down her left cheek, another
ripe to fall from her right eye. He wiped the existing tear away
with his right hand, then caught the other from her lashes before
it dropped.

He scooped her up and
clung on to her, listening to her controlled breathing as she
struggled not to collapse into a tired, drunken, heartfelt sob, and
succeeded.

“It’s good. It’s all
good. If everything happens for a reason, I’ve learnt and I’m a
bigger and wiser and stronger girl now. And I can pat myself on the
back for choosing waterproof mascara this evening.” And one
enormously deep breath followed, after which she pulled herself
away from him and sat up straight.

Alasdair pulled her
gently over towards him and kissed the centre of her forehead, just
lightly. “You want that taxi now?”

“My staying,” Jane
said, looking him right in the eye, and softly stroking his hand so
there were no mixed messages in what she was saying. “It wouldn’t
be a good idea?”

Every single cell in
her weary body pleaded with him to argue with her. It had been a
while since any man had captured her interest even vaguely as much
as he had, and she wanted so badly to be wrapped up and hugged and
loved.

“There was never a
worse one, my dear. I thank you so much for sharing and… for the
offer… but, no. You need your bed and I need my beauty sleep a lot
more than you do. Let’s get you home and tucked up.”

Rejection added to her
absolute fatigue. She’d hoped to have seemed less needy than this,
and there it was: indisputably, she’d made him an offer, and he’d
said no. Added to which, their paths were fated to weave together
at all the future significant points in their children’s lives.
Awkwardness was not an option.

“I’ll not argue with
that, old man,” she smiled, taking back the bold and feisty handle
on which she’d momentarily lost her grip.

And within five
minutes she was standing down in reception waiting for the taxi
he’d had the front-desk staff call for her.

Alasdair sat back on
his chair and poured himself a drink, which he downed in one. He
poured another and stared into the space in front of him, wishing
with a bitter passion that he was not the man he was and that his
fate was not simply to disappoint any woman stupid enough to get
near enough to him to allow herself to care.

He was, he knew
without one iota of doubt, bad news, and bad news was simply one
thing that delicate, strong, lovely woman he’d sent home did not
need.

“So, with a double
score, that’s ten plus one plus one plus three equals 15, times
two, ‘quim’, Burlington Bertie, I believe I have 30.”

“Uh huh, uh huh, well,
erm thanks for the ‘u’… we have one plus one plus three plus five,
‘suck’ for ten… and the triple? How could you not see that coming?
Unless I am mistaken, this sees me with a winning score!”

“I’m out, I’m out… I
give up. You truly are the dirty Scrabble master,” she typed, her
fingers running so speedily now during their games, that the tips
were becoming a finely calloused. “Come claim your reward.”

“Hmmmm. Now remind me
what the prize choice was, why don’t you? Didn’t one of them
involve you getting a on plane over here, so I could spank that
sassy ass of yours? Hey, didn’t it? Didn’t it, WG?”

“Okay, well… your
options were, a picture of said sassy ass… arse, dontcha know… as
photographed wearing shorts in Monmouth last year… A sneaky
cleavage shot, me headless in my bestest, cleanest bra… Or… or…
Honestly, Boyd, whatever you fancy. Anything. Tell me?”

“Well,” and here his
words appeared slowly in front of her, so she hung on each one, “I
think we both know what I’d like, Girl… I mean, whatever you send,
I love, I do, but I kinda keep wanting more. I guess I’m just a
greedy boy and I just… I want to see more and more of what I think
about pretty much every waking hour. But, hey, I understand if you
don’t want to. Honest, sweetie, the shorts’ll do for now. :)”

“Aw, poor you. My
heart bleeds. Shorts it is, then. Gotta go. Dishes calling. Same
time, same place?”

It was just over a
fortnight since the message about her sleek, glossy fur had started
her thinking, and although nothing concrete had been said, the mood
had begun to intensify in ways it was hard to measure. The comments
about his wife, which she was coming to realise had always been an
undercurrent in their chats, were now less frequent, and it became
obvious that his free time, the time he had to play with her, was
increasing.

Tonight’s dirty
Scrabble game had come about quite accidentally when the letters
CUM appeared in precisely that configuration in her rack and there
had been nothing to do but cyber-laugh and share. But he was right;
as he claimed that she flooded his mind, he was totally absorbing
hers, and at night when she fantasised, it was Boyd_Cooper who was
sneaking more and more into her deepest, dirtiest thoughts, the
inoffensive-looking middle-aged bespectacled guy in jeans and a
T-shirt with the words “Normal People Scare Me” emblazoned across
the front, from the photo he’d sent from his company picnic a few
weeks previously.

Half an hour later,
chores all done and their three children tucked up and snoring,
Megan lay on her wide bed with her head propped on several pillows,
listening to the noise of water slowly filling the bath across the
landing and looking down the length of her rounded body in leggings
and vest, imagining.

Undressing, she walked
into the bathroom and stood in front of the misty mirror staring at
the curves of her waist and her breasts, across which she smoothed
her hands. She enjoyed the natural feel of her contours, focusing
on what she thought Boyd might have been thinking of “pretty much
every waking hour”. This wasn’t the first time he’d hinted, and she
thought now might be the moment to act on a plan that had slowly
been forming in the back of her mind, a plan she felt sure would
put a smile on his face.

Dressed now in nothing
but her black lace knickers, Megan slipped back into her room to
fetch her phone, wiped the fog from the mirror, posed and clicked,
her breath catching a little at the thrill of it. And again. And
again. Not looking, just clicking, as adrenaline surged through
her, tickling her skin from beneath so that she felt squirmy with
arousal. Finally, turning off the taps of a very overfilled bath,
she walked back into her room and sat on the edge of her bed to
look at what the camera had captured.

A rush of feelings –
shame, pride, pleasure – washed over her as, for the first time in
her life, she sat alone flicking through pictures on her phone of
her naked torso, head missing, arms out towards the mirror where
she stretched to take this body selfie, deleting more than she
kept, until just three photos remained on her phone.

They stayed there,
those images of her bare breasts, while she paused and slid into a
bath so deep that despite the slowness of her actions, foamy water
slopped over the sides, soaking the blue towelling mat on the
floor. She clutched at thoughts of Rich as she sought reasons not
to send what she so keenly wanted to, but, much as she loved him,
and she did, she couldn’t stir up even the slightest rousing of
doubt about what she was about to do. It was just too fucking
inevitable and she was intoxicated by the insane, stimulating rush
of it.

After her bath, Megan
picked the favourite of her photos, fiddled a little with the
brightness and contrast, then added it to an email. She checked the
address at least 15 times, and her hand hovered over the send
button while her entire body tingled.

Then click.

Megan sat staring at
the screen of her phone as the email vanished with a whoosh of
noise into the digital silence. She sat fixated for 11 minutes. She
checked the address was correct again, repeatedly convincing
herself that she hadn’t, as per her worst fear, sent that email to
her boss or to her mother-in-law in error.

That initial wave of
arousal was being progressively replaced by a creeping self-disgust
as she began to question what the fuck she’d been thinking. Had he
asked for that? I mean, really? And she read back through his
earlier replies searching for clues as to where she might have
misunderstood his intent.

Under this cloud of
low-grade mortification, Megan walked downstairs, switched on the
kettle and placed a teabag into a cup. She wrapped the thick
woollen shawl that hung by the back door, along with the family’s
coats, tightly around her nightdress. Taking the scalding drink
with her, she went outside into the darkness and sat on the small
step that led down into the back garden.

Phone at her side, she
stared up at the glittering clear sky of that early autumn night
over Hastings and sipped, the combination of chilly air and the
insignificance of her frets in the face of the wider scheme
grounding her somewhat.

The unmistakable
echoing ping that heralded the incoming message sent a gush of
excitement through her as she grasped the phone, keyed in her
password and stared.

“Well, wow, sweetie,
just wow. Now THAT is a prize worth having. So beautiful. I love
it, them. Thanks. I wish we could talk now, sweetie. Same time
tomorrow?”

Relief swept over her
and she felt suddenly tired; there was nothing to do but sleep.
Typing an “X” in response, Megan grabbed the mug and went inside,
leaving the shawl over her shoulders until the very moment when she
threw it on to the floor beside her and slipped exhausted into
bed.

Tamsin walked
through the front door of the 1930s bay-windowed semi-detached
house in which she had grown up, velvet duffel bag in hand, and
continued straight up the stairs. Her mind was idling in neutral,
as it had been since she kissed the old man goodbye on the platform
at Piccadilly station before stepping on to her train.

Her parents and her
younger brother were out living their daytime lives, and so she
walked unnoticed into her childhood bedroom, throwing the bulging
bag on to the floor and herself on to her single bed.